Noah’s Ark nestled on Mount Ararat

The Peninsula ^ | January 19, 2008 | Satish Kanady

[2ndDivisionVet]

Dogubayazit (Turkey’s Iran-Armenian Border) • For the first time in the seven decade-long history of the search for the legendary Noah’s Ark, a Turkish-Hong Kong exploration team on Tuesday came out with “material evidence”, to prove that the Ark was nestled on Mount Ararat, Turkey’s highest mountain peak bordering Iran and Armenia.

A panel of experts, comprising Turkish authorities, veteran mountaineers, archaeologists, geologists and members of Hong Kong-based Noah’s Ark Ministries International, also displayed an almost one-metre-long peice of petrified wood before the media and specially invited international experts.

The experts claimed it to be a part of a long structure they had unearthed during their February-August 2007 exploration. “It is for the first time in the history of the Ark search that an exploration team is getting a material evidence and graphic documentation. This makes it not only a the significant breakthrough in the Ark-search, but one that is supported with the most substantial evidence in recent history,” the panel said.

The revelation is expected to open up a fresh chapter in the ongoing debates in the scientific community on the search for Noah’s Ark.

Narrating the genesis of their exploration on Mount Ararat, the mount which has a direct reference in Holy Quran (Mount Judi) and Bible, the panel said the search team had made several foiled attempts before unearthing the evidence at an altitude of 4,500-metres of the estimated 5,165 metre volcanic mountain.

“The structure was discovered in the interiors of an unusual cave. The 11.5m wide and 2.6m high white wooden texture was revealed after removing thick layers of volcanic ash on the cave wall,” panel members said at a press conference.

One of the underlying issues in the search for the Ark is the proper identification of its wood fragments. A petrographic examination carried out by the Applied Geoscience Centre of the Department of Earth Sciences, University of Hong Kong, identified the object as a petrified wooden structure, the panel said.

“Some of the big holes found on the structure indicate the locations where branches used to grow on tree. In places, original holes are partly or completely replaced by individual minerals and crystalline materials that can be found in rock materials,” said Dr Ahmet Ozbek, a panel member, who is also a faculty of Geology Engineering Kahramanmara Suctcu Imam University.

Dismissing the possibilities of the structure being wood that could appear naturally around the discovery site, Professor Oktay Belli, director, Eurasian Archaeology Institute, University of Istanbul, said researches have proved that there was no vegetation on Mount Ararat ever since 2000BC, because of the asperities of Ararat’s climate.

Talking to The Peninsula, Cemalettin Demircioglu, Dogubayazit City Governor, under whose jurisdiction the mount is located, said the civic body will invite more international experts to conduct further scientific studies on Mount Ararat.

“History has more than one times corroborated the legendary evidence that the ark was nestled on Mount Ararat. We will introduce the latest findings to the world and continue the scientific study. All interested scientists and NGOs can join our missions” he said. However, he said, those who are involved in the project must ensure the findings are not used politically, religiously, or for any vested interest.

Located in the Far Eastern Turkey, Ararat is great prize for mountain collectors. Ark sighting has often been reported from this mountain. The observation of Vessel-shaped features in aerial photograph of Ararat had caused a stir in the late 1950’s. However, this is the first time an exploration team is coming out with “material evidence”.

[mad_as_he$$]

Ok so Naoh builds a ship that is the size of a US post WW2 carrier?

USS Saratoga:

Displacement: 81,101 tons full, 61,235 tons light, 19,866 tons dead

Length: 1,063 feet (324 m)

Beam: 130 feet (39.6 m) waterline, 252 feet (76.8 m) extreme

Draft: 37 feet (11.3 m)

[timer]

Second that. I DO believe in christ and God, totally; but this really is BS. Call me an overly righteous SOB but this is what happened. Noah was a pakistani farmer living in the Indus River delta area. The Indus River floods irregularly, and he(his father/grandfather)had been flooded out before. So he built a 3 layer log raft 45’long, 8’wide 3’high on the high point of his land, anchoring it with a rope to a large tree, complete with goat skin tent, so that he could ride out the next river flood.

Instead along comes a 4 day hurricane with its storm surge of around 20’, or 15 cubits deep as it says in the story(just above the treetops which he knew were 15 cubits high). All the farm critters head for high ground(including snakes)as the hurricane’s flood waters rise. Thus a raft loaded with animals gets washed out into the Gulf of Arabia where from on the surface of a spherical earth it appears the whole world is covered with water.

It gets carried around in the great CCW gyre(northern hemisphere)and washes up on a sand bar some weeks later. They have to wade to the true shore at low tide(the water assuages). Noah goes back to farming, parties naked, etc. Three(illiterate)sons remember this traumatic story of being hurricane survivors and pass it on to their sons.

Seven generations go by and here Noah’s sheepherder descendents are sitting around a campfire, sipping adult beverages and telling fish stories. This is on the plains of shinar(iraq)where everyone is a GOD or SON of GOD, a macho monkey thing. So this old, and true, story of surviving a hurricane in pakistan gets jinned up : sand bar becomes Mt Ararat, 4 days of rain becomes 40 days, etc; and then told to the children that it is all perfectly true(see how GREAT a people we are, ie, early spin, hype, PR).

Still another 7 genertions go by and this old myth is taught as God’s truth to a young pakistani boy : ABRAM. As Marilyn Vos Savant(IQ 230)observed : you can convince a 5 year old of ANYTHING, a 95 year old of NOTHING.

So now you have IDIOTS finding noah’s ark every now and then on Mt Ararat when it was just a fish story invented around an iraqi campfire long ago by pakistani sheepherders. And of course, that means JEWS as well as ARABS, that claim ABRAHAM as their father, are pakistanis by genetic descent.

[Cicero]

lol

[Cicero]

Yes, here’s one explanation:

“Gopher wood” is a misreading and scribal error. “Kopher” wood is correct and means wood (any wood) that is covered with Kopher. Kopher is bitumen. In the Genesis text (6:14), the context is clear. The GPR wood used, (a scribal error) is to be covered in KPR. G and K in Hebrew are so similar that inexperienced Hebrew “scholars,” such as those translating the King James Version of the Bible, could have been prone to such errors, indeed, they made many such errors.

[ExtremeUnction]

We knew this a long time ago... oh, and the Bible said so.

Maybe the bible said so, but I don't think so. So for me, it's hogwash.

[ME-262]

Steve Fossett May be holed up in the Ark for all we know. Both are still unaccounted for.

[IllumiNaughtyByNature]

I agree with the faith asessment.

It will be interesting to see what they brought back though.

[RightOnline]

"Let me be the first to call bullsh*t."

... and just what is it in your little, closed mind that makes you declare something so juvenile? Have you taken the time to study the many years' worth of evidence that supports this 'find'? That the Ark is perched atop Ararat?

No, you say??

Do that...............then come back. Thanks for playing.

[Calvin Locke]

I once had a couple of MSWs for neighbors. The husband told me that the term "cubit" was banned at his workplace.

Apparently, it was the maximum length of a rod that one could beat one's wife with.

[Strategerist]

Have you taken the time to study the many years' worth of evidence that supports this 'find'?

There's been decades of nonsensical non-evidence purportedly from Mt. Ararat.

This is presumably (and I'm extremely confident it will turn out to be) more of the same.

[Calvin Locke]

There's a story that the CIA/NRO put up a new satellite. I'm guessing that it was the first "digital" camera satellite. Somebody suggested tasking it on the alleged ark site.

It was done as a training and targeting exercise for the new tool, but they soon regretted the decision as it brought unwanted attention to them, both from a curious public, and idiot elected officials looking to point to alleged waste by the agencies.

And, the photo resolution quality was probably a secret that they didn't want released.

I don't know if they are still classified.

[Balding_Eagle]

Can this be true? And if so, will it make some atheists heads explode?

Maybe Creationists heads too, since this is a piece of petrified wood.

[crusty old prospector]

"Great big gobs of greasy, grimy gopher guts." How about a nice, cool drink, varmints? Scum, slime, menace to the golfing industry! You're a disgrace. You're varmints. You're one of the lowest members of the food chain and you'll probably be replaced by the rat. Well, I have been pushed. It's about time somebody teaches these varmints a little lesson about morality and about what it's like to be a decent, upstanding member of a society! Come to Carl, varmint. I guess we're playing for keeps now. I guess the kidding around is pretty much over. I guess it's just a matter of pumping about 5,000 gallons of water down there to teach you a lesson. Is that it? I think it is!

[mass55th]

"Was it covered with lead based paint?"

And was the paint made in China?

[lasereye]

‘Instant’ petrified wood

[DBrow]

It is interesting that the wood would be petrified after such a short time, and without a silicate or lime layer over it.

[lasereye]

‘Instant’ petrified wood

[dread78645]

Yes, here’s one explanation:

“Gopher wood” is a misreading and scribal error. “Kopher” wood is correct and means wood (any wood) that is covered with Kopher. Kopher is bitumen. In the Genesis text (6:14), the context is clear. The GPR wood used, (a scribal error) is to be covered in KPR. G and K in Hebrew are so similar that inexperienced Hebrew “scholars,” such as those translating the King James Version of the Bible, could have been prone to such errors, indeed, they made many such errors.

Well that nice and all, but doesn't all that jitterbugging trash the idea of a Bible that's inerrant --free of error?

[Salvavida]

Close.

Actually, “gopher” in Hebrew is separate from “kopher”. It is derived from an unused root word, probably meaning to house in: a kind of tree or wood (as used for building: apparently the cypress. (Ref: Strongs)

You nailed the kopher. Betumin, along with the henna plant for dyeing. (Ref: Strongs)

The KJV translators didn’t need to translate the OT Hebrew because it was the Hebrews themselves (the Masoretes) that added a full system of vowels between 600-950AD, allowing it to be printed five centuries later. (Ref: Unger’s pg 883).

Another example of God keeping His promise to preserve His Word. (Ps 12:6-7)

[The Mayor]

I hope their heads do explode.